This being 2016, everyone expects to see Nautilus timepieces busting out the door at the Patek Philippe booth. (If this is your first time here, the Nautilus debuted in 1976 and this year it celebrates its 40th anniversary). So we’ll get right to it and say that you won’t be seeing any — not for now anyway. That’s right, no earthshaking Nautilus novelties at Baselworld 2016.

Don’t freak out — you’ll get them later this year.

Instead, we have an incredibly well balanced collection from the Geneva maison this year, the star of which is a compactly beautiful world-time chronograph. The Patek Philippe world-time watches are some of the most coveted in the collection, and little needs to be said about the exquisite chronographs of Patek Philippe. The new ref. 5930 combines these two complications in one beautifully sculpted monobloc case with arched lugs and a blue guilloché centre dial.

The chronograph seconds scale fits between the 24-hour scale and the city disc, such that the two complications are visually as well as mechanically integrated.

As we’ve been expecting, we also saw the Grandmaster Chime make an appearance in the main collection, this time in white gold with a guilloché Clous de Paris case and dial centre.

One particularly enjoyable refinement in the 2016 collection was the addition of applied indices to the date scale of the retrograde perpetual calendar ref. 5496. Previously these numerals were printed, and although the overall difference may be slight to a casual observer, the detail and nuance imparted to the dial aesthetic is felt subtly, distinctively.

Two more mentions before we sign off and head over to the Rolex side of things — the perpetual calendar 5327J (those sculpted lugs and concave bezel!) and the split-seconds chronograph ref. 5959J (always a favourite model of mine but previously only available in steel — now in yellow gold with a gorgeous gold dial).

More later, Revolutionaries, including news on a beautiful series of high-jewellery ladies’ minute repeaters. Stay tuned for our live report on the Rolex and Tudor novelties for Baselworld 2016!